Deddeda Stemler/The Globe and Mail
Millions of Canadians enjoyed Don Vaughan’s landscapes without ever having given the man or his work a moment’s thought.
Mr. Vaughan, who has died at 88, was a renowned landscape architect. He worked on both of Canada’s expositions, helped shape the campuses of British Columbia’s three largest universities, and created verdant oases amid the concrete towers of downtown Vancouver. His style has been studied and duplicated as far afield as China.
“People don’t see the landscape,” he said in 2007. “They just take it for granted.”
A trademark feature of Mr. Vaughan’s work was inclusion. He designed walkways and squares with public – not private – interests in mind.
“He believed the spaces in a city belonged to the people,” said Mark Vaughan, one of two sons who worked for their father’s firm and now run it.
Granite Assemblage in Ambleside Landing, West Vancouver.Steve Gairns, West Coast Modern League/Supplied
If you ever wandered the grounds of Habitat at Expo 67, or strolled the pathways of Expo 86, or picnicked in David Lam Park, or fed a seagull in a public plaza at Granville Island, or met a classmate in front of the library fountain at the University of Victoria, or posed for wedding photographs at Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden, or smiled at children scrabbling over granite rocks at Ambleside Park, or meditated at Nitobe Memorial Garden at the University of British Columbia, or mourned a loved one in the Imperial Garden at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, or shared a smoke and gossip with neighbours in a West End minipark, or breathed in the sweet, almondlike fragrance of Akebono cherry tree blossoms at Art Phillips Park on your way to catch SkyTrain, or clomped through the snow in Whistler Village (or chugged a pitcher of beer after winning an Olympic gold medal), you have enjoyed Mr. Vaughan’s handiwork.
Don Willan Vaughan was born on June 21, 1937, in what is now Coos Bay, a small city in coastal Oregon. He was the first of five children born to the former Dorothy York, a university graduate, and Harold George Vaughan, who studied architecture at university before entering the family lumber business, only to later start a small independent logging company of his own.
The family was touched by tragedy when the couple’s third child, a girl named Victoria Ann, died in infancy in a bedding accident on her mother’s birthday.
Young Don struggled in school, which he later understood to be because of undiagnosed dyslexia. His high school principal offered to graduate him so long as he promised not to take college courses. He readily agreed, since he had already signed up for duty in the U.S. Navy.
After completing his service, he enrolled in architecture at the University of Oregon in Eugene, where an English instructor once told him to “never put pen to paper without a dictionary by your side.”
Don Vaughan, then-70 years old, stands next to the landmark water fountain he designed, which is currently empty, at the University of Victoria.Deddeda Stemler/The Globe and Mail
In 1961, he suffered a broken back and fractured skull when his sports car flipped on a slick street, pinning him below. After four months in hospital, including time in a body cast, he was released late in the academic year, so instead decided to take a temporary job in Australia. Asked to supervise several landscaping projects, he altered his studies on his return to the United States, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture in 1965.
That same year, he married Patricia Smith, a college graduate also from Coos Bay, and the couple moved to Canada, settling in West Vancouver, a tony suburb across Burrard Inlet from the city.
He joined John Lantzius & Associates, a firm led by a Vancouver-born, American-educated landscape architect. The company was working with architect Arthur Erickson in designing the new Simon Fraser University atop Burnaby Mountain.
The Erickson connection led to work on the grounds of the Man in the Community pavilion for Expo 67 on Montreal’s Cité du Havre peninsula. Mr. Vaughan also worked on the nearby Habitat 67 development, a residence of prefabricated concrete boxes designed by Moshe Safdie.
In 1984, Mr. Vaughan formed the Landscape 86 Collaborative, a team of landscape architects who designed the plazas that were credited with much of the success of the Expo 86 transportation and communication fair. Instead of having to stand in line to enter a popular pavilion, fairgoers could be entertained by musicians and others simply while relaxing on a bench. Even the flowers matched the six colour-coded zones of the fairgrounds along the north side of False Creek in Vancouver.
When the site was later developed, he was a key figure in designing a waterfront path for walking and cycling along a restored natural shoreline, helping to reconnect residents of a newly built, high-density development to a waterfront long lost to industrial use.
Mr. Vaughan worked with architect Joe Wai on the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Garden, a sanctuary of serenity amid the bustle of Vancouver’s Chinatown. More than 50 artisans and materials from China were used in creating the garden.
The Nitobe Garden, originally built in 1960 , was renovated in 1993 by Mr. Vaughan, his son Jeff, and Shunmyo Masuno, a landscape architect, bestselling author and head priest of a Zen Buddhist temple in Japan. The elder Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Masuno also worked together on the rooftop Zen garden at the Canadian Museum of History (formerly Civilization) in Gatineau, Que.
Mr. Vaughan also designed landscapes for Tumbler Ridge, a resource community in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia that was recently in the news as the site of a mass shooting, and Whistler Town Centre, a pedestrian-friendly ski resort that was the site of some events of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the late 1980s, Mr. Vaughan returned to school, studying sculpture at what is now the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Several of his public art installations can be seen around Vancouver, including Marking High Tide and Waiting for Low Tide in David Lam Park and Vancouver Overture, Opus One at Bayshore Park, a fountain with lights, jets and black concrete pavers.
Waiting for Low Tide, in David Lam Park, Vancouver.Steve Gairns, West Coast Modern League/Supplied
The fountains and water features he designed were inspired by childhood memories of the Millicoma River, a fast-flowing stream that ran through his family’s land in Oregon.
In retirement, he took up competitive weightlifting, winning several awards and setting provincial records in his age bracket.
Mr. Vaughan, who died on Jan. 19, leaves the former Patricia Smith, known as Patty, his wife of 60 years. He also leaves sons Jeff and Mark Vaughan, as well as four granddaughters, two brothers and a sister.
One of his more popular creations is Vancouver’s Sun Life Plaza, which is set in a bowl of brushed concrete with seating below street level, helping to mask the sound of traffic at the corner of Melville and Thurlow streets.
One sunny day, he struck up a conversation with a woman reading a book there, who told him it was her favourite spot in the city. He asked her what she thought of the person who designed so comfortable a space.
“Never thought of it,” she replied. “I just thought it happened.”
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